Best Store Window

It's the gas mask. A golden gas mask just cries out for a second look.

Even if it's really just a spray-painted respirator that Jane Williams, the artist owner of Bang! Bang! Vintage Consignment in Arcata, had acquired for some long-ago art project.

The gas mask, plus Bigfoot and other past concoctions, helped Bang! Bang! edge past poster-plastered, book-bedecked Northtown Books in Arcata, as well as out-fenstering Eureka's Booklegger, with its little nude statues wearing boat-book headdresses, and Good Relations, with its occasional live mannequins.

Yes, the gas mask even beat live mannequins for Best Store Window.

Williams tries to change her windows every month, and she got a lot of attention for her August effort, inspired by customers who kept coming in asking for Burning Man gear. She thinks of it as industrial/steampunk/Burning Man themed.